This would be the narrative for a presentation of the post-baptismal mystagogy for those that recently entered into the church.
Now that you are baptized, an adopted child of God, there are many ways to live out the call to being Christian. The grace that was given to us by the Holy Spirit in baptism is a something we can be grateful for, to be the recipients of God’s mercy…but it doesn’t stop there! The very words of the simple formula to baptism were taken from the gospel of Matthew when Jesus also commissioned his friends to make disciples of all nations and to “baptize in the name of the Father, in the Son and the Holy Spirit.” It is crucial to hold these two commands together. The desire for all people to be baptized is at the heart of why each one of you chose to be incorporated into the Christian community, to those those of us who are among the shepherd’s flock! It is the message of victory over death!
Cleansing
There are a number of motifs that can be drawn from the rite of baptism and I will attempt to cover a few here in this blog. The basic fact we know of baptism is its cleansing from sin. Robin Jensen covers this in her book Baptismal Imagery in Early Christianity. The image Jensen alludes to is when Jesus cures the blind man. “Jesus’s use of spit to heal the man’s eyes… [is] symbolically incorporated into a Western rite known as the ephphetha, in which the bishop touches the nostrils and ears of the candidate, commanding them to ‘be opened.’ This ritual action offers a liturgical link between biblical story and visual image, underscoring the idea that baptism offered both bodily and spiritual healing” (28). This scene is depicted in the sarcophagus below that shows a number of stories from scripture.
Rebirth
The second motif to recognize from the rite of baptism is rebirth. This goes along with the washing of our sins, we die to our old selves and are reborn in a new life in Christ. “The close juxtaposition of Jesus’ identity as sacrificial lamb and as the bringer of the Spirit baptism implies that Spirit baptism transmits the benefits of Christ’s redemptive death” (139). The paschal mystery runs through the theology behind baptism; this is much of the reason why neophytes were initiated on Easter Vigil. Jensen quotes St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, “For if we have been united to him in a death like his, we will certainly be united to him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (6:5-6).
The theme of rebirth runs through both the Old Testament and New Testament. Particularly, the story of Lazarus is used frequently on early Christian sarcophagi, as can be seen in the following:
The story of Jonah is also a commonly used in baptismal imagery, as seen in the following sarcophagus:
Among the scenes, this sarcophagus illustrates Jonah on the belly of the whale. Jensen points out his nudity here explaining, “like Adam’s nudity before his fall, Jonah’s nudity suggests, specifically an innocence resorted through the sacrament of baptism” (155). Jesus is also frequently represented as a child or smaller person, in comparison to John the Baptist, as you can see below. Jensen notes, “The nudity and diminutive size of certain figures signifies their resuscitation, thereby making them figures of baptismal renewal.”
Recreation
There is much comparison made between baptism and the return to original creation in the catechesis lectures given to those newly entering the early Church. Jensen’s points out from Cyril of Jerusalem’s first lecture, “Then may the gate of paradise be opened to every man and every woman of you; then may you enjoy the fragrant Christ-bearing water. Then may you receive Christ’s name” (178). There is a reference to paradise, also alluding the the original paradise, the garden of Eden, in the Genesis account of creation. The paradise that was lost due to Adam and Eve’s sin is restored in baptism. Jensen points out, “the candidate, dipped in the font and sealed with the Holy Spirit, is a re-creation of the first human being, once again a recipient of the divine breathing” (179). This can be seen in the top left section of the following sarcophagus:
“The features of Adam and Eve are not meant to remind viewers only of their fallen state. Their appearance also alludes to both the remed for that state (baptism) and that remedy’s further promise (resurrection)” (183).
Performing Beauty 